Pine Cone Press Hanging Album

I will be leading this class on Tuesday December 14th at Scrapbook Garden.  The kit is the December Pine Cone Press Options kit.  The Christmas paper is by Echo Park. We will be making this hanging album in the class and will also provide detailed instructions to make another mini album that features quilt patterns.  All in all these are fun and interesting projects.

Pine Cone Press Options Mini Album and Hanging Album

Here are some pictures of a mini album that is optional for a class I am teaching on December 14th at Scrapbook Garden.  The different touch for this album is that the alternating pages are quilt patterns done with Echo Park paper.  The Pine Cone Press Booklet that goes with it also has the Hanging Album which is the primary project as well as cards and scrapbook pages.  Another great offering from Pine Cone Press.

Dan and Jean League

Dan and Jean League were in Derby last week.  Dan is an evangelist and was leading a revival at Derby Church of the Nazarene.  Ray and Dan have been friends since high school and did a lot of "interesting" things when they were younger.  The Leagues are more of our friends that even though we haven't seen each other in years, we sit down and start talking and it was just like we saw each other last week.  It is one of the benefits of Facebook now, that we are able to keep in touch more, but there still is catching up to do.  We had dinner and breakfast together and we attended one of Dan's services.  All revivals should be as interesting as his are.  Dan is a great story teller and holds your attention completely.  He takes a story that I might know pretty well and brings it to a level relating to your faith that I would never have expected.  I would go hear him preach any time. 

All Caught up!

I feel so much better now.  I am all caught up on my posts and am ready to face the world again.

Basic Grey Jovial Christmas Album



These are a few of the pages from the Basic Grey Jovial Christmas album that I will be leading on Tuesday December 7th.  The paper is very cute and the embellishments are humorous.  I love the snowmen.

Hero Arts Christmas Cards

The colors are terrible for some reason on these cards, but they are cute stamped cards using Hero Arts Stamps.  I will be leading the class on Tuesday, November 11th.  We will be using the Sizzix dry embossing machine for the backgrounds as well.  The techniques used build on what people learn in Rubber Stamp 101.

Five Years Old

Wyatt turned five on the 25th.  He had a very nice birthday party.  Keeping with the theme, he had a Spiderman Birthday cake, and got some Spiderman stuff for gifts.  Ray and I rented a bouncy castle for the party and it was a hit.  The kids played in the castle, then had cake, played in the castle, then opened gifts, then played in the castle.  Anything that keeps small children entertained that completely is a success.  Time flies so fast though.  He is five, before we know it both kids will be grown.  Ray and I try very hard to appreciate everything we get to participate in with our grandchildren.

Halloween

Here are some pictures taken of the kids in their Halloween costumes.  Halloween costumes get a lot more wear than they did when I was a child.  This year Wyatt was Spiderman.  This was not much of a stretch since we all know that he "believes" he is Spiderman already.  Ray found this costume which was pretty neat, it had muscles and a very nice full face mask.  Andrea got the hand me down duck costume that Wyatt wore a couple of years ago.  I tend to think her attitude reflected a disdain for this, next year she will have to be a princess, that is more her style. 

Anyway, the kids first dressed up for Trunk or Treat at church.  Last year, I didn't understand how it worked and Wyatt didn't wear his costume.  The weather was bad and they held it in the hall way in the church.  This year it was out in the parking lot and it was FUN!  People decorate the backs of their cars and it is cool.  Ray and I are already thinking about what we will do next year.

Next, Wyatt had a party at school, where they have a parade.  This has been a tradition at Rex for years.  We have pictures of Wyatt's mother and uncle during the Halloween parades when they went to school there. 

Finally, they went out on Halloween trick or treating.  Wyatt and Andrea have clothes they probably haven't worn this much.  But they did have fun and so did we.  Best of all, the candy went elsewhere.

First Born Crop October 2010

One of the first things I cannot let go unacknowledged is that I went to Denton last weekend for our semi-annual First Born Crop.  Angie, Barb, Cynthia, Taunja and I have been getting together twice a year since October 2004.  After the first time together, we realized that we all were the oldest children in our families and believe that is part of what made us all connect so well.  We all met on line and didn't know each other before that first weekend.  Except for Cynthia and Angie who had gone to school together in Midland, but didn't realize that until we met in real life.  We eat well. scrap a lot, laugh a lot and provide an unexplainable amount of comfort and rejuvenation to each other's spirits.  The common thread in our comments, is that there is very little that would keep us from getting together, it is just too important.  Everyone should have friends like this.  I am blessed.

Random thoughts for early November

For the first time this year I didn't get my minimum of ten posts in the month of October.  It wasn't because I had nothing to post, it was just a lack of motivation.  A slump, the blahs, something like that.  No matter how I put it, I had my smug alter ego de-smugged a bit because my discipline failed.

Discipline is not easy for me, I would love nothing better than to wander around with no thought of exercising control in what I do and what I eat and anything else.  After all lack of discipline is what got my weight to 179 pounds and discipline and self control is what brought me down to my current weight.  I am still dealing with that fear.  What if I give it all up and gain weight again.  I don't think I will, and I may not.  But, what if?

We have been doing a bible study in circle about the roles of older and younger women as Christians.  How older women should lead by being examples of Christian living and younger women should be willing to listen to what  older women have to say.  The last chapter was about self control and how it can be a source of freedom instead of being restricting.  There is a lesson in there for me, but I am resisting it still.

My life has been a very good one since I retired.  I am blessed with that.  But now and then things I can't control come into play and make me upset.  We learned something tonight that is causing me concerns.  It isn't  affecting me directly, but is a close family member.  I want to rush in and make things better, but I can't and I am not sure that even if I could, that my effort would be wanted or appreciated.  Luckily, that is where the blessing of having Ray as my husband comes to play.  He had better ideas and moved to act on them  almost immediately.  I think he will do better in getting them accepted than I would have as well.  As for me, I am going to pray about it.

Prayer is not hard for me, but it isn't an ingrained habit.  I do more short prayers and I try for a daily laundry list prayer for the folks on the prayer chain and family and friends.  I still have to understand how people can sit and pray for fifteen minutes at a stretch let alone an hour.  Yoga has started to show me how to clear my mind, so I can concentrate on prayer, so maybe I will be able to accomplish uninterrupted serious prayer yet.

Now I am going to do some more posts of the things I should have been doing for the last three weeks.